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Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was within his rights in ignoring the 2 percent state employee pay raises negotiated by departing Gov. Parris N. Glendening, an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday in a decision that left both sides claiming victory. The state's largest employees union sued Ehrlich in April, claiming that salary and step increases for its 27,000 members approved by Glendening were binding for the new governor and should have been included in the budget Ehrlich submitted in January.

Maryland governors need not include pay raises in their budgets even after they've negotiated increases with public employees' unions, a state lawyer argued yesterday in a case that will determine the impact of a 1999 collective bargaining rights law. Assistant Attorney General Robert A. Zarnoch said the 1999 law is not strong enough to require spending levels for employee salaries, even after both sides have agreed on a raise. Under Maryland's constitution, the governor has vast budget powers, and funding for only a very few items - notably, public education - are specifically required.

"AOL" is all but O-U-T at AOL Time Warner Inc. America Online Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Miller has proposed to corporate Chairman Richard Parsons that the expanded name be shrunk to what it was before the ill-fated megamerger in January 2001. As a result, Parsons and senior managers are considering changing the name to Time Warner, but the decision will be made "in due course with the board," spokeswoman Mia Carbonell said yesterday. The 13-member board, including six members with AOL roots, meets next month and could take up the issue then.

It's a bird! It's a plane! Actually, it's a giggling gaggle of five fabulous, fearless flibbertigibbets armed with exfoliators, color swatches, thinning shears and creme brulee spoons. Think of them as gay superheroes, lavender avengers, velvet Mafiosi. Their mission? Not so impossible: rescuing their hetero brethren from fashion / decorating / entertaining faux pas. That's the premise of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the new "lifestyle makeover series" that made its premiere on Bravo this past week.

A citizens group that monitors environmental cleanup at Aberdeen Proving Ground is preparing to sue the installation for failing to supply information it says is critical to its work, bringing to a head a controversy that surfaced last fall when base security officers began editing maps or refusing to release them altogether. "We'll think we have a solution and request something else, and [then] we don't get maps," said Glenda Bowling, president of the Aberdeen Proving Ground Superfund Citizens Coalition (APGSCC)

In sworn statements in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, former state Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV - who was recently appointed to a high-paying state job by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. - asserts he has not been party to any lawsuits within the last year and has not had his wages garnisheed. Those statements appear to be in direct conflict with information in other public records and court filings reviewed by The Sun, including: * Mitchell's wages as a senator were garnisheed last year to help pay a $400,000 debt he and other family members owe. * Mitchell did not contest a $21,250 judgment in April involving a loan he did not repay.

Maryland residents and businesses cannot sue "junk fax" advertisers in state court under a 1991 federal consumer protection law because state law does not give consumers that power, the Court of Special Appeals ruled this week. "It will make Maryland the only state in the country that does not allow private suits under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act," said lawyer Stephen H. Ring, who was seeking to press a class action lawsuit. "I think it is ripe to be reversed on appeal."

Maryland police departments will receive a total of nearly $1 million in federal assistance to offset costs associated with the October sniper shootings, but Anne Arundel and Howard counties - which tallied half a million dollars in overtime as they monitored schools and roads during the crisis - apparently won't get a penny. "I'm disappointed," said Anne Arundel County Police Chief P. Thomas Shanahan. "This wasn't cheap or easy for us to do. We were hoping for some federal help." Five Maryland police departments, 21 in Virginia and one in Washington will divide the $2.5 million Justice Department reimbursement.